Let’s say you’re a film maker in the Hindi cinema of the late 1960s. You’ve set your heart on making a thriller. You have some money, but not enough to be able to hope to churn out something with Shammi Kapoor, set in Europe. You see all these glittering films—Teesri Manzil, An Evening in Paris, Jewel Thief—being released, and it irks you. If they can do it, why can’t you? So one day you gird up your loins, and inspired by all of these, and all the James Bond movies you can lay your hands upon, you set out to make your own thriller.
You cannot afford Shammi Kapoor [or is he perhaps too discerning to agree after he’s read the script?], so you settle for Biswajeet instead. You don’t have the budget to shoot abroad, but that doesn’t matter. You will make do by bringing abroad here to India, by plonking a bronze wig onto Biswajeet and having him pretend to be a Parisian named Robbie for much of the film.
But I am getting ahead of myself and probably leaving behind many of my readers who’re wondering what Kahin Din Kahin Raat is all about. So, to start at the very beginning, as Maria would say.
Kahin Din Kahin Raat begins with an aeroplane [which changes between shots from a jet to what looks like one of those really rickety two-seater planes]. Full of obviously contraband material packed in crates, the plane lands somewhere in the countryside, and immediately two lots of people set off to meet it. One lot consists of the goons, who go in a truck to transfer the contraband. The other is a bunch of policemen.
There’s an encounter, the police helicopter bursts into flames [with a single shot from a rifle. Wow!], and the goons’ truck, in trying to get away, falls down a cliff and ends up in another ball of fire.
There is now a very brief scene in which we are introduced to a CID inspector, Suraj (Biswajeet), who announces that he’s had enough of this. He’s going to find out who’s at the bottom of this.
We next see Suraj, now wearing a bronze wig and a suit, getting into the Agra-Delhi train at Agra. On the train, he bumps into Helen (Helen, in pale blue-grey contacts). They get chatting, and he informs her that his name is Robbie, and that he’s got a ‘business in Paris’. He doesn’t say what business, but informs her that he likes to come to India twice a year or so. All of this in a patently false firang accent, but Helen doesn’t seem to mind.
Shortly after, some cops enter the train carriage and start searching all the men, no explanations offered. Before they can get to him, Robbie pulls out a little cylinder from his pocket, tells Helen that it’s a fine new perfume, and gifts it to her. She refuses, but he insists, and eventually shoves it into her bag. When the cops reach him, they aren’t able to find anything on Robbie…
… but Helen, when she checks into her hotel room in Delhi (a hotel, by the way, whose assistant to the Assistant Manager is played by Johnny Walker), opens the ‘perfume bottle’ to find this:
Ah.
Helen is by now besotted by Robbie [Seriously? Where are your eyes, girl? Are those contacts opaque? Or have those bits of transparent plastic dazzled you so completely?]. She decides this is a good opportunity to do him a good turn.
That evening, therefore, when Robbie is [for no reason that I can fathom] beaten up by a bunch of goons who form part of the gang of which Helen too is a member, Helen puts in a word with the main goon, Jack (Manmohan). Look, she tells him. Look at these diamonds. A man who’s so enterprising, who could so easily slip this past the cops, must be part of our enterprise.
Jack agrees, and having been introduced to Robbie by Helen, asks Robbie if he’s up to doing some work for them. Robbie jumps at the suggestion, and is told that his assignment is to bump off somebody named Baadshah, a gang member who’s been jailed by the cops. Why kill him, asks Robbie, and suggests that it would be better to simply help Baadshah escape. He can do that? Jack asks, astonished [he obviously thinks it’s easier to get in, kill, and get out, all unnoticed, than to help someone escape—unless Jack couldn’t care less if Robbie can’t get out after doing the killing].
Robbie says he can, and does. He and Baadshah shake off the cops and hide behind the Purana Qila. Robbie goes off to a telephone booth to make a phone call to Jack to let him know mission accomplished, but finds the booth occupied [this is an inept lot of crooks, if you ask me, if they’re depending upon a public telephone for communications].
When the woman (Sapna, billed as ‘Year’s Sweet Seventeen’) who’s in the booth finally puts the phone down and emerges, Robbie recognizes her. His soulmate, his love, Poonam [yes, well. Those two matching bronze wigs do look as if they came from the same source, don’t they?]
She initially refuses to recognize him, then—just as he’s going off, calls him back, and admits that yes, she did see through his disguise [the women in this film have horribly bad eyesight, if you ask me. Anyone who took so much time to see through a shoddy wig needs a vision test]. They were sweethearts back in college.
This allows for a flashback just long enough to fit in a song, and then we’re back to the telephone booth, where Poonam tells Robbie (or Suraj, as she knows him) to come over to her house the next day. They must renew their acquaintance. Robbie agrees happily and when Poonam has gone, makes his phone call. Jack, in turn, phones his boss, a mysterious (only for the next few minutes) woman, who tells him that a car will come to pick up Robbie and Baadshah from behind the Purana Qila.
Things move quickly now [that is one thing that can be said for Kahin Din Kahin Raat: its pace, no matter how lunatic, never slows down]. A woman is driving the car that arrives at the spot, and though he can’t see her face, Robbie gets suspicious. We can see her face, so it is a bit surprising to find that this is, indeed, Poonam. She says nothing, drops them off and goes home, to throw herself down on the bed and weep a bucket of tears.
Meanwhile, Robbie sees the reception Baadshah gets. The grande dame (Nadira) of the gang, someone whom Jack calls Ma’am and Baadshah calls May-dumb, appears. She slaps Baadshah a few times, and ignoring his pleas for mercy, has him hauled off to be ‘attended to’.
Next time we meet this female, she’s sitting at the breakfast table, dressed in sari etc, and being nasty to Poonam, who has had the gall to tell her that she won’t be doing any more of May-dumb’s work [no, Poonam doesn’t call her that, but it’s such a delightful appellation that I think I’ll adopt it for the rest of this review]. May-dumb is furious and threatens Poonam: if Poonam won’t do her bidding, it’ll be curtains for Poonam’s father. A weepy Poonam can do nothing but slink away, chastised and helpless.
We now see more of May-dumb, whose partner in crime is her lover Pran (Pran). Between them, they’ve taken May-dumb’s husband captive and are using him to keep Poonam, who is May-dumb’s stepdaughter, doing work for them. [Why two people who can hire n number of goons to work for them think it’s important to have a reluctant and therefore dangerous female drive getaway cars is beyond me]. May-dumb leads the ultimate double life: as the white-clad, demure widow of a wealthy man, she donates large sums to charity:
… and as May-dumb, she is the very picture of dissipated and debauched older womanhood. Her husband Seth Raj Kishore (Bipin Gupta) is kept captive in a cellar, where Pran and May-dumb periodically go, to persuade him to tell them where the ‘box of diamonds’ is kept.
Meanwhile, Suraj/Robbie, remembering his promise to come visit Poonam at her home, manages to get out of the goons’ lair where he’s holed up. Helen helps him in this (because he wants to go out for a while, even if he doesn’t tell her why). She follows him on the sly, though.
Poonam and Suraj/Robbie, when they begin talking, get pretty angry. They accuse each other of being criminals, and this doesn’t get resolved. Poonam doesn’t tell him why she’s being chauffeur to the thugs, and Suraj/Robbie doesn’t explain that he’s actually an undercover cop. They part, with much resentful weeping on both sides [and from Helen, who has only heard snatches of this conversation, enough to assure her that Robbie and Poonam are devoted to each other].
And that, basically, is the set-up. Our hero soon finds himself battling an array of forces, ranging from a woman scientist who has invented poisonous fake fingernails:
An owl that’s escaped from the menagerie that doubles as said scientist’s lab:
A quartet of bumbling and utterly unfunny private detectives (including Asit Sen, Mohan Choti, and Ram Avtar), who are more hindrance than help:
And just general mayhem.
Having said which, I shall end with a single sentence [since I cannot bring myself to even try and list all that I found irritating about Kahin Din Kahin Raat, and there seems little point in mentioning that a couple of OP Nayyar’s songs for this film aren’t bad].
Watch at your own peril: you have been warned.
Dustedoff 
” … gird up your loins …” ? Include the “Loin” Ajit and your job is half done
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LOL! Though Ajit wasn’t to come into his Loin avatar for a few years, yet…
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Well before AB popularised the 786 in movies, the truck’s registration number is 7286!
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I hadn’t noticed that.
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Wonderful review! The movie seems to be worth its weight in bronze.
What’s the point of wearing a wig covered by s hat? To look more French than the French?
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Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the review.
As to wearing a wig covered by a hat… perhaps you’re right, it’s probably more an attempt to look Gallic (though if they really wanted to go the whole hog, that should have been a beret, I think). Or maybe an attempt to tone down the horridness of the wig. It’s really frightful in places where he’s not got a hat to dilute it somewhat.
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I don’t know which ‘aside’ of yours to pick for making me laugh, but I was glad my tea was safely by my keyboard. :)
I’m going to start using ‘May-Dumb’ from now on. And what an exciting ode to women power, villains, sidekicks, et al. But. Biswajeet. Groooooooaaaan.
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I am so glad you enjoyed this, Anu.
And yes, it is an ode to women power, especially with that female scientist. Helen and Nadira’s May-dumb aren’t extraordinary when it comes to vamps, but the scientist is a change from the usual.
Maybe I should change my gravatar from Dustedoff to Maydumb. After all, if Greta can be memsaab, why not? ;-)
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The review is hilarious! I was laughing from the very first sentence itself. It looks like Biswajeet got Pran’s wig from Mere Sanam. He had to do with handovers, poor thing.
Even his ‘normal’ hair looks like a bad wig. What’s wrong with you, Biswajeet? Get your act straight! Poor thing, he just doesn’t stand a chance, tripping over himself like that.
Nadira looks fabulous though. Bless her! And Pran, bless him too!
Poor heroine, she must have had so many dreams set on this film and what does she get in the end. Nada. Okay, she got some experience.
Did you post this, because in four days we are having the International Women’s Day?
No, that can’t be.
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“It looks like Biswajeet got Pran’s wig from Mere Sanam.”
An Evening in Paris, I think.
And yes, Biswwajeet’s own hair looks pretty foul, too. He looks as if he’s trying to imitate Dev Anand’s trademark puff. It didn’t look good on Dev Anand, and it looks even worse on Biswajeet.
I wonder what happened to Sapna. I don’t recall seeing her in any other film, and she’s actually (barring that horrible wig) quite pretty,. And not an unbearable actress. At least not as poker-faced as Vimmi, for instance.
“Did you post this, because in four days we are having the International Women’s Day?”
No, no! Absolutely not. :-D
So glad you liked this review, Harvey! And thank you for that comment, which made me laugh.
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Wonderful review, but why do you subject yourself to this torture? As if Biswajeet wasn’t bad enough by himself, Biswajeet in a horrible wig? And then his sweetheart also sports a bronze wig? Did they have a sale on those wigs? Buy one, get one free! And why is Helen, who appears to be a part of the gang, shedding tears over the lovebirds weeping? Thank you for a hilarious review, but I think I will stay away from this movie.
By the way, how did they get an owl to become a part of their lab? And who was this one film wonder, Sapna? I cannot recall hearing the name, ever. She doesn’t seem to have any expressions on her face, judging from the screen shots you have posted. I suppose that is why her career tanked after this movie.
Thanks for the warning, not that I needed it. The mere mention of Biswajeet is enough for me.
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“Wonderful review, but why do you subject yourself to this torture? ”
This actually came about as a result of Greta’s review of the (also Biswajeet starrer) April Fool. When I asked Greta if she’d watched Kahin Din Kahin Raat, she said that she hadn’t, and that some searching hadn’t yielded any subtitled versions. So I offered to review it.
Yes, it is crazy, and yes, I would not watch it again, but the good things about rotten films like this is that they make for entertaining reviews. ;-)
Oh, and as for Helen weeping – that’s because all she hears is Suraj/Robbie telling Poonam that when he met her, he knew she was his soulmate. Helen’s heart goes chaknachoor on realizing that her Robbie is another’s Suraj. She doesn’t listen to the rest, when Robbie and Poonam vent their mutual anger on each other. Very convenient.
Sapna is a mystery to me, too. I wonder what happened to her. She’s quite pretty, and while she’s no great shakes as an actress, at least she’s not as irritatingly blank as (say) Vimmi.
No, Lalitha, do not watch this. :-)
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Hilarious. The review, not the film which is indistinguishable from many other movies of that time.
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Thank you. :-)
As for this film being indistinguishable from many others of that time, I wouldn’t agree. I personally this is much worse than most I’ve seen.
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Your hilarious review really made it sound like a fun film to watch.. Just looking at those funny wigs make me burst in laughter. I wonder if the director even cared to watch their completed “Product”. How else can they let such a scrappy movie go as-is?
Should this movie be called “Kahin Wig Kahin Baal”?
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“Should this movie be called “Kahin Wig Kahin Baal”?”
That is sheer genius, Ashish! :-D Brilliant.
Perhaps the producers and directors of stuff like this actually watch it and think they’ve done a good job. I do know, personally, of several writers who sincerely think they’ve written masterpieces, and never even realize what utter trash they’ve churned out. I suppose it’s a question of being so much in love with your own work that you become blind to its faults.
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Baal Baal Bach Gaye!
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Seriously. ;-) I nearly pulled out my hair while watching this.
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He he he. We did thanks to madhu!
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:-) As Greta says, this was one for the team.
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Thanks Madhu for the compliment!
Regarding people not realizing their incoherent work, I hear you. Perhaps it’s the people they surround themselves with? I don’t know how else they can not see the obvious..
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Yes, I think you have a point there. Surrounding yourself with people who fawn over you and dare not be honest – even if they think they’re doing it for your good – is not a good thing.
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I have not been able to read your blog as regularly of late, but I am sure glad I read this review. Absolutely priceless. You made my afternoon. I laughed out loud at the matching wigs comment. Will probably not subject myself to watching this film, but who knows, maybe on a slow day when I need a laugh. Often times, if the music is good, then that helps me get through a film. But OPN is sort of uninspired in this one, and the songs sound like poor copies of his own previous music.
And Ashish, I love your alternate title suggestion.
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed this review. But yes, do not watch this unless you are willing to subject yourself to some pretty atrocious cinema just for the sake of a laugh.
You’re right; OPN is really uninspired here. He’s not terrible, but when you compare this to something like Mere Sanam, you see just how forgettable the tunes here are.
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hilarious!! well written review. But the golden oldies can be seen, at least once, when movies were plain entertainment.
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Thank you!
And yes, I tend to agree with you. Most old films were at least good for some entertainment. It was very rarely that one comes across a film from that period that is actually painful to sit through.
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You’re kind to warn us, Madhu, but I see “Kahin Din Kahin Raat” coming to a laptop near me soon. I can’t resist Hindi film kitsch like this. :-D
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Heh. Yes, it’s actually quite entertaining, if you think of it as unintentional humour. ;-) I have another – a spy thriller – lined up.
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Oh my God! The write up/review is so hilarious, I almost fell down from the chair while laughing :-)
Just out of curiosity, did you write this in one go? Or there were some versions?
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Thank so much! I’m glad you enjoyed this review. :-)
And, to answer your question: this was written in one go. None of my cinema-related posts go into different versions.
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I don’t know how to thank blog owner for reviewing this movie because now i know a movie of sapna ji. i am following old Hindi cinema and artists for more than a decade. I still remember reading an article which mentioned sapna ji like this. Dream girl shabd dar asal abhinetri sapna k liye gdha guya tha. par sapna nahi chali. usi samay hema malini film sapno ka saudagar sey hindi cinema mai kdam rakhney wali thi. toh publicists ney socha kyu na yeh naam hema malini ko de diya jaaye. aur es trah hema malini dream girl bun kar hindi cinema k rupehley pardey par aayi, i will definitely watch the movie to see sapna ji.
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Don’t get your hopes up about the movie, though. As I’ve mentioned, it’s pretty bad.
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In all probability, Sapna might be related to the producer/ director or may be a girl in their neighborhood. Most one-film wonders are like that. Kishore Sahu introduced his daughter with a big bang in “Hare Kanch Ki Chudiyan” but she preferred matrimony to films. There are so many others in this league – Archana Gupta who just did three movies (Buddha Mil Gaya, Umang and Anokha Daan) ; comedienne Manorama’s daughter who debuted with Sanjeev Kumar but fell in love and settled in ME; Naki Jahan who was pretty in her debut – Akhri Khat but married the scion of Kamdar furniture company in Mumbai, Gayatri Joshi of Swades who married billionaire real estate developer Oberoi; Madhavi who debuted in a Sanjay Khan movie and vanished…. So probably Sapna would have settled for matrimony after her disastrous debut.
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Yes, very likely that she was related in some way to someone who made the film. She’s pretty, and her acting isn’t terrible, but the film itself is so forgettable that I’m not surprised Sapna doesn’t seem to have made any sort of mark in the industry. Perhaps, given a better launch vehicle, she might have done better for herself. On the other hand, who knows?
Naina Sahu, by the way – I’m glad she didn’t do too many films. She looks too much like her father. ;-)
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I think you forgot to mention the hit song – Tumhara chahne wala khuda ki duniya mein… but yes you have mentioned about O P Nayyar somewhere.
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I didn’t forget. I just don’t like the song enough to consider it worth a mention.
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Ironically, Hema Malini’s debut was Sapnon ka Saudagar.
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I watched the song – Tumhara chahenewala on You Tube; I completely agree – Biswajeet’s hairstyle is egregious; Sapna may be better than Vimi but she looks so raw – blame it on the director! BTW, who directed this movie?
I fail to see why the heroine needs such a terrible wig.
A good song wasted in such a useless film.
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It is Darshan Sabharwal. Father of Suneel Darshan and Dharmesh Darshan, Bollywood producers.
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Yes. He also directed Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi, which – while not as good as Woh Kaun Thi?, isn’t a bad suspense film.
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Mam, I think you missed a melodious duet
” Yaron ki tamanna hai teri julfon mein fans jayen “.
This is a beautiful song picturized on Johny Walker
and Malika on the busy roads of Delhi and Qutub Minar
and India Gate on the background.
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I didn’t miss it. :-) I don’t list all the songs of the film, just the ones I especially like.
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Tell us more about Actress Sapna. What’s her full name.What she is doing now??
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No idea. I don’t even know if she worked in too many other films.
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